Technology Tales

Adventures & experiences in contemporary technology

A case of the reverse Midas touch?

18th May 2009

Last week, a power cut put my main home PC of of action. It may have been recoverable if that silly accident of a few weeks back hadn’t happened but a rebuild is progress. That hasn’t been going so well but I somehow am managing to remain hopeful that an avenue of exploration will yield some fruit. Thoughts of throwing in the towel and call in the professionals rather than throwing good money after bad are gathering. The saga is causing me to question the sense of self building in place of buying something ready built. Saying that, they can have their off days too.

In the meantime, I have been displaced onto the spare desktop PC and the laptop. In other words, my home computing needs are being fulfilled to a point though the feeling of frustrated displacement and partial disconnection from my data remains; I have been able to extricate most of my digital photos and my web building so things are far from being hopeless. With every disappointment, there remains an opportunity or two. The spare desktop runs Debian so I have been spending some time seeing if I can bend that to my will and it can be done, sometimes after a fashion.

A few posts should result from this period, not least regarding working with Debian. On the subject of hardware, I’ll not elaborate until the matter comes to a more permanent resolution. From past attempts (all were successful in the end), I know that the business of PC building can feel like a dark art: you are left there wondering why none of your efforts summon a working system to life and then it all comes together in the blink of an eye and you wonder why all the effort was expended. The best analogy that I can offer is awaiting a bus or train; it often seems that the waiting takes longer than the journey. Restoring my home computing to what it was before is a mere triviality compared to what some people have to suffer but resolution of a problem always puts a spring in my step.

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